Sunday, March 11, 2007

Yesterday, we attended the second
session of the Meditation & Dharma Talk and Discussion organized by the Middle Way
Buddhist Association . Originally, the
session frequency has been decided at bimonthly
intervals. But today’s session, coming as it is just one week after the first
one held last Saturday, is an ad hoc change to accommodate the planned
one-month trip of BhanteDhammawansha
to Asia this month. Also, the organizers have decided
to reduce the frequency to a monthly one, it being the second Saturday of each
month. So the next session is scheduled on April 14.
Do mark your calendar accordingly.

·to sit in a comfortable, relaxed posture,
even on a chair if necessary;

·to close the eyes gently so that we cannot
see the world but ourselves;

·to be mindful
but do not get distracted by external sound/noise. Just be familiar with the
sound/noise but do not react to it.

On my part, I heard the following
but did not react to the hearing:

- cars speeding by (the venue is just next to a
road);- faint ringing of a cell phone (perhaps it was
kept in a handbag);- footsteps;- chairs creaking;- sitting pillows being squashed by bodies changing
positions;- Bhante’s soft droning
voice;- my own occasional deep breathing.

I find that it helps me to be mindful but not distracted by assigning a number
to any sound that my audio nerves pick up, much like counting my own breaths.

In the ensuing dharma talk and discussion conducted by Bhante for English speaking attendees (Brother Shieh was unable to be present this time and so I
gravitated to the English class), Bhante answered an
inquiry from an attendee as to whether Buddha is a God by way of a story:

One day, Buddha was accosted by a passer-by who was
drawn to him by Buddha’s radiance, his robe, and his overall demeanor
portraying him as a sage.

“Will you be God?”“No,” Buddha answered.

“Will you be a dead person?”“No,” Buddha replied.

“Will you be a dancer?” [prompted
perhaps by the robe that Buddha was wearing.]“No,” Buddha responded.

“Will you be a human being?”“No, but I’m a supernatural human being.” Buddha stated and
explained using the analogy of a lotus flower that blooms amidst the muddy
water of a lotus pond.

The lotus flower does not carry any odor of the muddy environment, i.e., it is
unattached to the mud. In that sense, the mud is the mundane world and we
sentient beings are anything but the lotus flower, until we discover our Buddha
nature. So while Buddha is a human
being, the fact that he has attained enlightenment elevated him to the
“superman” status. He has understood reality and he has tamed his internal
enemies.

We are by nature lazy beings, and keep on postponing the surfacing of our Buddha
nature because of worldly enjoyment. We are supposed to be attracted to Buddha,
as naturally as iron is to magnet. But by clinging to
attachments and being consumed by greed, hatred, and delusion, we are covered
by rust.

A more accurate analogy is perhaps our Buddha nature is like
gems under the earth strata. These strata are like defilements, covering the
gem like an impenetrable cloak over our intrinsic Buddha
nature. So by embracing and practicing Dharma (Buddha’s
teaching, truth, law, and reality), we are making efforts to let our Buddha
nature to come to the fore. In other words, Buddha is the
greatest physician for diseases that afflict our mind, and no medicine is
similar to Dharma.

Bhante
also elaborated on the uniqueness of Buddhism, Buddha, and his
teaching as summarized below:

·Buddha never
discovered anything new; he rediscovered ancient paths.

·Nobody granted Buddhabuddhahood; he did it
without any external agency.

·The core values of Buddhism are wisdom,
compassion, and self-experience. So Buddhist followers
and practitioners are encouraged to think freely and decide for themselves.

·Buddhist monks are teachers,
and not preachers as it is not the aim of Buddhism to convert anyone.

·The core teaching of Buddhism is enshrined in
the Four Noble Truths (the word "Noble" signifying that the four
truths are immutable and eternal). And they are:

1.Life
is suffering/misery/distress (the last two are more
common terms suggested by Bhante so that
westerners may find it easier to relate to. Another connotation of duhkha, the original word in Sanskrit, is unrest).

I googled Einstein
and Buddhism and located the relevant quotations here (where this picture is taken from as
well) as reproduced below:

Buddhism has the characteristics of what would beexpected in a cosmic religion for the future: It transcends a personal God,
avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual; and it is
based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural
and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.---- AlbertEinstein

If there is any religion that would copewith modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.---- AlbertEinstein

And the philosopher is ArthurSchopenhauer, a fellow countryman
of Einstein who lived more than a century earlier:

If I were to take the results of my philosophy asthe standard of truth, I would have to considerBuddhism the finest of all religion.---- Arthur Schopenhauer

Bhante also referred to H. G. Wells who is
perhaps better known for his fiction works, several of which have been adapted
into movies, the latest one being the remake of the War
of the Worlds directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom
Cruise and Dakota Fanning (2005). But he was also an
imaginative social thinker whose non-fiction works include A Short
History of the World (1922). According to Bartleby.com,
this work is “Wells’s tribute to “the needs
of the busy general reader who wishes to refresh and repair his faded or
fragmentary conceptions of the great adventure of mankind.”

Two chapters from the book are The Life of Gautama Buddha (Chapter 28)
and King Asoka
(Chapter 29). The latter was characterized by Wells in the following words

:

"In the history of the world there have been thousands of kings and
emperors who called themselves 'Their Highnesses', 'Their majesties' and 'Their
Exalted Majesties' and so on. They shone for a brief movement and disappeared.
But Ashoka shines and shines brightly like a bright
star even today."

As his parting words for the second session, Bhante
admonished:

“Do not get attached, but do your duty, instead of clamoring for rights.”

The image below shows the rapt attention on everyone's face during the
post-session interaction while partaking of the vegetarian lunch. See you all
on April 14.